Death: HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO *BE* HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers? [Santa Clauses]

Death: YES. AS PRACTICE, YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

Susan: So we can believe the big ones?

Death: YES. JUSTICE, MERCY, DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

Susan: They're not the same at all.

Death: YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER, AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE, AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET, YOU TRY TO ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD. AS IF THERE IS SOME, SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE, BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

Susan: But people have got to believe that, or what's the point?

Death: YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?

-- Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

>> Do you see a man wise[enlightened/ariya]in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723

I actually heard an interview with him on public radio a few months ago on the subject of his alzheimers (I think).
It was one of the more intelligent interviews I have heard for awhile, and very insightful.
kind regards

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

tiltbillings wrote:Death: YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER, AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE, AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY.

I don't think the Buddha defined mercy, let's say "compassion" in terms of atoms and molecules. I'd ask Mr. "Death" here how it is he came to the view that if something cannot be shown as an atom or molecule, it is fictional.

"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230

tiltbillings wrote:Death: YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER, AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE, AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY.

I don't think the Buddha defined mercy, let's say "compassion" in terms of atoms and molecules. I'd ask Mr. "Death" here how it is he came to the view that if something cannot be shown as an atom or molecule, it is fictional.

tiltbillings wrote:Death: YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER, AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE, AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY.

I don't think the Buddha defined mercy, let's say "compassion" in terms of atoms and molecules. I'd ask Mr. "Death" here how it is he came to the view that if something cannot be shown as an atom or molecule, it is fictional.